I'm happy to see I'm not the only one who understands this.
Global warming is as real today was the next "ice age" was 20 years ago. Either is possible, neither is certain, and there's very little we can do about either.
The thing is, certain people who are used to knee-jerk reactions are trying to react in the same way to the climate. Political winds can change every few years, but the climate, in the grand scheme of things, is the same today as it was 20 years ago. The fact that some people are now talking about global warming reflects a knee-jerk reaction to events that happen on a geological timescale.
But these people aren't trying to make changes that would have any real effect on the planet and that's why they aren't even thinking on geological timescales. These people are trying to make political changes, which is why we see waffling from "ice age" to "global warming" in the span of about a decade (IIRC, they were still talking about ice age in 1980 and I believe global warming became hip around 1990?). It is also why their "solutions" are political (i.e., Kyoto), not scientific. Rather, they try to use science to justify and force political change.
I'm so sick of environmentalists trying to push their political agenda under the guise of environmentalism. The 9/11 attacks were awful, but if there is one good thing that has come out of the War on Terror it is that no-one has really cared about the whole "global warming" debate in about a year. It's been demoted to its proper level of importance.:)
Why Bother??? Because even if it is only 5-10 years that gives us 5 -10 years for my children to live and possibly come up with a way to reverse the damage done by over consumption and the Oil companies lack of caring about the future.
Re-Read the thread and the parent you replied to. He is saying that even if we don't burn fossil fuels we might be on the verge of an ice age. If anything, burning fossil fuels might help warm the planet slightly and postpone the next ice age.
There are plenty of other reasons to bother but I feel the main one is because we created (with the help of our parents) this mess and just sitting idly by is just plain lazy and stupid.
Massive climate change has happened in the past without man's help. And some of those changes have been much more extreme than what we have witnessed in the last 150 years.
Complacency isn't an excuse it is a cop out.
No, but recognition of the immense power of mother nature and our miniscule importance IS.
Sorry I know I am going on a rant but my god people wake up and smell the CO2, do something about it, ride the bus, take a bike every little bit helps!
Every bus you take, every bike you ride contributes just that much more to quickening the next ice age.
I believe that dealing with a little extra heat in our enviroment is more manageable than dealing with ice a mile thick. YMMV.
I mean come on, how long should it take someone to realize that 0.83 is two quarters, three dimes, and three pennies? Should they even have to check that twice?
Perhaps if they had checked it twice they would have given you 3 quarters, a nickel, and 3 pennies--resulting in one less coin to throw into the "small change" container at home.
FWIW, I think the problem you cite isn't so much of a problem in mathematics but a complete lack of halfway intelligent kids at fast food places. I remember, once upon a time, when I worked at McDs. We actually had to worry about getting a customer served in 30 seconds. We were worried about efficiency. Unefficient kids (teenagers) DID get canned. Now, some idiot kid takes 30 seconds just to rearrange catsup packets in the bin below the counter while you wait for him to acknowledge your presence.
I don't know if kids are stupider now than they used to be, or if smarter kids are now able to find better jobs than McDonalds--leaving McD with all the leftover idiots.
Too bad, the Russian economy is approaching third world standards at a breathtaking pace. These democracy and capitalism things are great, indeed...
Russia is paying the real cost of their expenses under about 70 years of communism. Things weren't good before and bad now because communism works and capitalism doesn't. Things were "good" before because the real cost was hidden. Things are "bad" now because the real cost is painfully evident.
Hang in there, in the long run it'll all work out for the better. The last thing you should do is stick your head back in the sand by going back to communism and blindly thinking that'll fix everything. To the contrary, that's what got you into this mess to start with.
It's an interesting approach to what the RIAA sees as the problem (piracy), but it does nothing to address the real problem (cost) as it exists for the consumer. Consider this "product activation" for music. Still seem like a good idea?
See my post above. $1 per 1000 impressions might be what some sites with random, non-relevant advertisements get. For example, if you visit a C++ forum and see random banners about free vacations, credit cards, and online casinos, sure, they might get a buck per mil. But my site gets about 350k hits per month and last I ran the numbers I was earning a little over $1000 per month--and that's because not all my advertising slots are filled right now.
No, not enough to build a company on but enough to pay for all my site and Internet-related expenses and leave me with money left over each month. Not bad for something I would do as a hobby even if I couldn't break even.:)
The going rate is less than $1 per 1000 impressions.
That depends a lot on the audience and the site where you are advertising. For general advertising over a dozen random sites that have nothing to do with what you are advertising, you might be right.
I run a technical website that serves a niche market. Companies selling their products to that niche market are still paying about $10 per 1000. Granted, I have fewer advertisers than 2 years ago, but from what they've told me that was due to a general cut in advertising budget during the recession, not due to a decision to abandon banner ads.
Most advertisers only like to buy from sites that have a lot of inventory. We're talking hundreds of thousands of impressions per month, generally
You are right in that advertisers aren't going to care about some site that gets 10k hits per month. My site does about 350,000 per month and commands the ad revenue mentioned above.
But actually I would say that there is now relatively more interest in smaller sites (less than a million hits per month) than larger sites since the smaller sites generally are more focused on a specific topic. The visitors to those sites are predisposed to be potentially interested in what the advertisers are offering. My website sells ad space directly, none of those "banner exchange" deals. And we've only run ads that were related to our subject matter. You won't see silly "hit the monkey" banner ads on my site.
Our most successful advertiser achieved a 1 out of 25 click-thru rate, which was pretty impressive. Others achieve much less. But everyone that advertises builds brand recognition. It might not lead to a click or a sale today, but that doesn't mean the advertising budget was poorly spent. It is doubtful that for every dollar Pepsi spends on advertising they generated a dollar of new income the next day. But over time it keeps "Pepsi" on everyone's mind.
... Although that won't matter much because after it illuminates something and is "used up" you, traveling at 'c' right behind the light, are going to smash on through it anyway.
the Constitution grants certain copyright exemptions to educational institutions, and these should not be infringed
While certain fair use is recognized under the law, it certainly isn't granted or guaranteed by the Constitution--assuming you refer to the Constitution of the United States.
The Constitution only speaks of promoting "the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exlcusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
So, the concept of copyrights and patents is recognized in the Constitution, but there are virtually no details on the subject--much less any list of exemptions, even for educational use.
The place I work at (which I'm not going to disclose right now) asked us for:
- Rent receipts
- My financial breakdown
- Cost of schooling
- Credit Card receipts
You should sue them. If not, at the very least report them to the labor department of your state.
When applying for a job I don't even give them my salary history. What I earned in the past is irrelevant to how much I'm worth now. And what my living expenses are are completely irrelevant. What's important is that the company is comfortable paying me what I'm asking, and that I'm comfortable being paid that. If I have less expenses then my coworker that doesn't mean I should earn less.
This is the kind of thing you should reject immediately. Find a different job.
I don't see why its not consevable why 1% of those users are using 97.
1%? From the article in the story:
A research firm reported in May that about 32 percent of offices have copies of Word 97 running, according to a survey of 1,500 high-tech managers worldwide.
So 32% of all offices have copies of Word 97. I'm sure quite a few have Word 2000, too.
All in all, not taking care of the security risks created by their product in at least 32% of the offices worldwide is not going to win Microsoft any friends. And I wonder how many are really going to say, "Oh, they aren't going to fix it? We better go run out and buy Office XP then." Right... I suspect Microsoft will be issuing fixes for 97 and 2000.
As others have said, it's a good opportunity to check out OpenOffice. I received a legal copy of Office XP and installed it on a test machine. I couldn't get around product activation which meant I wasn't going to use it, but I was able to run it a few time since you get 40 uses or so before you have to activate. Turns out I didn't like it anyway, so I just stuck with Office 2000 and downloaded OpenOffice last week.
If I remember correctly, they'd already pretty much surrendered when the bomb was being flown over. The military just wanted to test out their new shiny toy.
No, actually, you remember incorrectly. They were not surrendering and a full-scale invasion of the Japanese mainland would have been necessary. We dropped the bomb to convince Japan to surrender to save countless Americans AND Japanese that would die in the invasion. Japan still wasn't going to surrender because they thought we only had one bomb... so we dropped a second bomb and that convinced him.
Make no mistake, the Japanese were not going to surrender. If they were, they would have done so promptly in the three days following the Hiroshima bomb. But even that wasn't enough.
Also, I beleive that America has bombed something like 35 countries killing 3 million people in it's history. That's quite a lot. That's as bad as Germany and the number of Jews they had killed.
Well, I'm not going to investigate that right now. I don't doubt we've killed many people, that's a given. However, even 3 million would only be HALF as many as the number of Jews Hitler killed. As a result of Hitler's conquest, 19 million Soviet civilians were killed in addition to 6 million Jews. That's 25 million civilians not even counting the millions of military that died on both sides during WWII.
So, considering Germany wasn't even a superpower and their ambition for conquest killed 25 million civilians in about 8 years, the fact that the U.S.--as a true world superpower, capable of defeating any country on the planet--has only killed 3 million people in the the last 220 years is not bad at all!
The U.S. is not perfect, no. But there has never been a country so powerful that COULD take over the entire world that didn't try. Say what you want about the U.S., we could annex the entire world militarily if we wanted to--yet our territory hasn't expanded for more than 60 years.
I agree with parent. I run a number of websites and my Apache webserver does what it needs to do, period. If I built a brand new server box from scratch I'd probably go for a new version of Apache but I don't plan on upgrading my existing Apache to the new version.
More than sites rejecting Apache 2, I think it's a strong testament to the reliability of previous versions of Apache.
That's the paradise of not using Microsoft: No forced upgrades.:)
Actually, I *would* put all the turbines in North Dakota. That way only 45 people in the country would have to see the complete and utter ugliness of having a huge windmill farm.
Wind power is doomed to failure. As has been mentioned, they are ugly, noisy, and take up WAY too much space for the amount of power they generate.
This will flop, just like all the other ones... In reality it is simply a matter of them not providing a quality service.
The reality is that even if it provides quality-bitrate MP3s it will only survive if the music library is MASSIVE. Even then, it might not survive.
Why? I'd just assume hop on to P2P and download the song I want anonymously from someone I've never met and who doesn't know me and be done with it in 5 minutes. The paysites involve going to a website, signing up for a service, risking spam in your email account, charges on your credit card, and possible privacy invasion from companies that try to mine your browsing/spending habits.
No, thanks, I'll stick with P2P and not have to deal with anything like that. Just easier, more secure, and more private.
Even if everybody burned coal completely in there power plants the efficiency would still be about 10% higher and be much cleaner because of economies of scale.
Do you have links/sources on that? It'd be great if it's true. But everything I've read indicates that coal is just about the dirtiest way to produce energy. I guess by burning coal it allows you to centralize pollution controls, but I'm curious where that 10% figure came from.
The U/S has no right granting rights to the moon. In fact anyone or Nation has as much right on the moon as anyone else and if the world decides that the moon need controls then I would expect a unified World body to apply them
Unfortunately, the only unified body in the world powerful enough economically and militarily to apply them IS the United States.
Oh well. The moon is ours by default until someone else actually gets there. Then we'll just have to kick their ass on principle.:)
And the main function of the civil court system is to make sure the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Wait, I thought that was the function of the federal government? Wait, no, it was the function of the IRS? Or was it the main function of capitalism?
Or, perhaps, it's just the tired rhetoric propagated by a cynical bunch of losers that are depressed because they can't make as much money as Bill Gates by hanging out posting meaningless words on Slashdot.
That or Democrats that can't come up with anything better to say in their attempt to get elected and use it to score points with the cynical bunch just mentioned.
I think that the obvious to one skilled in the art isn't fairly evaluated today.
I don't know exactly who makes up the patent office, but I agree that it appears they don't know what is obvious or not. Based on some of the patents that have been issued, I get the impression that a patent application goes to the next available patent clerk--not to the next available patent clerk that knows something about the subject. Therein lies the whole problem.
Here's a better question: Can anyone explain which dumbass thought it would be a good idea to develop a wireless standard that could knock a jet out of the air?
Here's an even better question: Can anyone explain which dumbass developed avionics for commercial airliners that can be interfered with by RF noise?
I don't know when this stuff was developed. But even if such portable RF devices weren't around when they were developed they should still have taken into account random RF noise. Airplane crashes and the explanation is, "Oh, just random RF noise caused that. You see, the collision avoidance system only works in a pristine, stable RF environment."
I agree. I've always believed that the whole "turn off CD players and laptops during takeoff" was either 1) uninformed paranoia or 2) tricks to get you to use on-board entertainment and phone services.
If the safety of the plane is truly at risk if someone forgets (or intentionally!) leaves their cell phone on, we've got bigger safety problems with our planes than wiring short-circuiting in gas tanks or people walking on to planes with guns.
Fix the planes. If the collision avoidance system is so delicate, demand quality product from the collision avoidance vendor. If the damn system can't tell the difference between an incoming 747 and a cell phone aft of the cockpit, why are they paying good money for that system?
Punishing web sites for reproducing information on current events (like newspapers do in their sports section) is beyond ridiculously stupid.
They didn't. They punished web sites that were using team/baseball league logos--and those same sites were apparently trying to make some money. My understanding is that they don't even have a problem with fans using their logos on websites as long as it's non-profit.
I still think it's heavy-handed. Especially for something called "America's passtime."
No-one has ever taken a picture of my car to give me insurance. They took some pictures once when I filed a claim for hail damage, but there were no "before" pictures to compare them with.
Actually, it wouldn't be unreasonable for them to want to take the pictures when you get insurance. But I've never had them ask to do that.
Slashdot Mirror
Global warming is as real today was the next "ice age" was 20 years ago. Either is possible, neither is certain, and there's very little we can do about either.
The thing is, certain people who are used to knee-jerk reactions are trying to react in the same way to the climate. Political winds can change every few years, but the climate, in the grand scheme of things, is the same today as it was 20 years ago. The fact that some people are now talking about global warming reflects a knee-jerk reaction to events that happen on a geological timescale.
But these people aren't trying to make changes that would have any real effect on the planet and that's why they aren't even thinking on geological timescales. These people are trying to make political changes, which is why we see waffling from "ice age" to "global warming" in the span of about a decade (IIRC, they were still talking about ice age in 1980 and I believe global warming became hip around 1990?). It is also why their "solutions" are political (i.e., Kyoto), not scientific. Rather, they try to use science to justify and force political change.
I'm so sick of environmentalists trying to push their political agenda under the guise of environmentalism. The 9/11 attacks were awful, but if there is one good thing that has come out of the War on Terror it is that no-one has really cared about the whole "global warming" debate in about a year. It's been demoted to its proper level of importance. :)
Re-Read the thread and the parent you replied to. He is saying that even if we don't burn fossil fuels we might be on the verge of an ice age. If anything, burning fossil fuels might help warm the planet slightly and postpone the next ice age.
There are plenty of other reasons to bother but I feel the main one is because we created (with the help of our parents) this mess and just sitting idly by is just plain lazy and stupid.
Massive climate change has happened in the past without man's help. And some of those changes have been much more extreme than what we have witnessed in the last 150 years.
Complacency isn't an excuse it is a cop out.
No, but recognition of the immense power of mother nature and our miniscule importance IS.
Sorry I know I am going on a rant but my god people wake up and smell the CO2, do something about it, ride the bus, take a bike every little bit helps!
Every bus you take, every bike you ride contributes just that much more to quickening the next ice age.
I believe that dealing with a little extra heat in our enviroment is more manageable than dealing with ice a mile thick. YMMV.
Perhaps if they had checked it twice they would have given you 3 quarters, a nickel, and 3 pennies--resulting in one less coin to throw into the "small change" container at home.
FWIW, I think the problem you cite isn't so much of a problem in mathematics but a complete lack of halfway intelligent kids at fast food places. I remember, once upon a time, when I worked at McDs. We actually had to worry about getting a customer served in 30 seconds. We were worried about efficiency. Unefficient kids (teenagers) DID get canned. Now, some idiot kid takes 30 seconds just to rearrange catsup packets in the bin below the counter while you wait for him to acknowledge your presence.
I don't know if kids are stupider now than they used to be, or if smarter kids are now able to find better jobs than McDonalds--leaving McD with all the leftover idiots.
Ouch.
Russia is paying the real cost of their expenses under about 70 years of communism. Things weren't good before and bad now because communism works and capitalism doesn't. Things were "good" before because the real cost was hidden. Things are "bad" now because the real cost is painfully evident.
Hang in there, in the long run it'll all work out for the better. The last thing you should do is stick your head back in the sand by going back to communism and blindly thinking that'll fix everything. To the contrary, that's what got you into this mess to start with.
It's an interesting approach to what the RIAA sees as the problem (piracy), but it does nothing to address the real problem (cost) as it exists for the consumer. Consider this "product activation" for music. Still seem like a good idea?
No, not enough to build a company on but enough to pay for all my site and Internet-related expenses and leave me with money left over each month. Not bad for something I would do as a hobby even if I couldn't break even. :)
That depends a lot on the audience and the site where you are advertising. For general advertising over a dozen random sites that have nothing to do with what you are advertising, you might be right.
I run a technical website that serves a niche market. Companies selling their products to that niche market are still paying about $10 per 1000. Granted, I have fewer advertisers than 2 years ago, but from what they've told me that was due to a general cut in advertising budget during the recession, not due to a decision to abandon banner ads.
Most advertisers only like to buy from sites that have a lot of inventory. We're talking hundreds of thousands of impressions per month, generally
You are right in that advertisers aren't going to care about some site that gets 10k hits per month. My site does about 350,000 per month and commands the ad revenue mentioned above.
But actually I would say that there is now relatively more interest in smaller sites (less than a million hits per month) than larger sites since the smaller sites generally are more focused on a specific topic. The visitors to those sites are predisposed to be potentially interested in what the advertisers are offering. My website sells ad space directly, none of those "banner exchange" deals. And we've only run ads that were related to our subject matter. You won't see silly "hit the monkey" banner ads on my site.
Our most successful advertiser achieved a 1 out of 25 click-thru rate, which was pretty impressive. Others achieve much less. But everyone that advertises builds brand recognition. It might not lead to a click or a sale today, but that doesn't mean the advertising budget was poorly spent. It is doubtful that for every dollar Pepsi spends on advertising they generated a dollar of new income the next day. But over time it keeps "Pepsi" on everyone's mind.
While certain fair use is recognized under the law, it certainly isn't granted or guaranteed by the Constitution--assuming you refer to the Constitution of the United States.
The Constitution only speaks of promoting "the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exlcusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
So, the concept of copyrights and patents is recognized in the Constitution, but there are virtually no details on the subject--much less any list of exemptions, even for educational use.
- Rent receipts
- My financial breakdown
- Cost of schooling
- Credit Card receipts
You should sue them. If not, at the very least report them to the labor department of your state.
When applying for a job I don't even give them my salary history. What I earned in the past is irrelevant to how much I'm worth now. And what my living expenses are are completely irrelevant. What's important is that the company is comfortable paying me what I'm asking, and that I'm comfortable being paid that. If I have less expenses then my coworker that doesn't mean I should earn less.
This is the kind of thing you should reject immediately. Find a different job.
1%? From the article in the story:
So 32% of all offices have copies of Word 97. I'm sure quite a few have Word 2000, too.
All in all, not taking care of the security risks created by their product in at least 32% of the offices worldwide is not going to win Microsoft any friends. And I wonder how many are really going to say, "Oh, they aren't going to fix it? We better go run out and buy Office XP then." Right... I suspect Microsoft will be issuing fixes for 97 and 2000.
As others have said, it's a good opportunity to check out OpenOffice. I received a legal copy of Office XP and installed it on a test machine. I couldn't get around product activation which meant I wasn't going to use it, but I was able to run it a few time since you get 40 uses or so before you have to activate. Turns out I didn't like it anyway, so I just stuck with Office 2000 and downloaded OpenOffice last week.
No, actually, you remember incorrectly. They were not surrendering and a full-scale invasion of the Japanese mainland would have been necessary. We dropped the bomb to convince Japan to surrender to save countless Americans AND Japanese that would die in the invasion. Japan still wasn't going to surrender because they thought we only had one bomb... so we dropped a second bomb and that convinced him.
Make no mistake, the Japanese were not going to surrender. If they were, they would have done so promptly in the three days following the Hiroshima bomb. But even that wasn't enough.
Also, I beleive that America has bombed something like 35 countries killing 3 million people in it's history. That's quite a lot. That's as bad as Germany and the number of Jews they had killed.
Well, I'm not going to investigate that right now. I don't doubt we've killed many people, that's a given. However, even 3 million would only be HALF as many as the number of Jews Hitler killed. As a result of Hitler's conquest, 19 million Soviet civilians were killed in addition to 6 million Jews. That's 25 million civilians not even counting the millions of military that died on both sides during WWII.
So, considering Germany wasn't even a superpower and their ambition for conquest killed 25 million civilians in about 8 years, the fact that the U.S.--as a true world superpower, capable of defeating any country on the planet--has only killed 3 million people in the the last 220 years is not bad at all!
The U.S. is not perfect, no. But there has never been a country so powerful that COULD take over the entire world that didn't try. Say what you want about the U.S., we could annex the entire world militarily if we wanted to--yet our territory hasn't expanded for more than 60 years.
More than sites rejecting Apache 2, I think it's a strong testament to the reliability of previous versions of Apache.
That's the paradise of not using Microsoft: No forced upgrades. :)
Wind power is doomed to failure. As has been mentioned, they are ugly, noisy, and take up WAY too much space for the amount of power they generate.
They're ugly eyesoars.
The reality is that even if it provides quality-bitrate MP3s it will only survive if the music library is MASSIVE. Even then, it might not survive.
Why? I'd just assume hop on to P2P and download the song I want anonymously from someone I've never met and who doesn't know me and be done with it in 5 minutes. The paysites involve going to a website, signing up for a service, risking spam in your email account, charges on your credit card, and possible privacy invasion from companies that try to mine your browsing/spending habits.
No, thanks, I'll stick with P2P and not have to deal with anything like that. Just easier, more secure, and more private.
Do you have links/sources on that? It'd be great if it's true. But everything I've read indicates that coal is just about the dirtiest way to produce energy. I guess by burning coal it allows you to centralize pollution controls, but I'm curious where that 10% figure came from.
Unfortunately, the only unified body in the world powerful enough economically and militarily to apply them IS the United States.
Oh well. The moon is ours by default until someone else actually gets there. Then we'll just have to kick their ass on principle. :)
Wait, I thought that was the function of the federal government? Wait, no, it was the function of the IRS? Or was it the main function of capitalism?
Or, perhaps, it's just the tired rhetoric propagated by a cynical bunch of losers that are depressed because they can't make as much money as Bill Gates by hanging out posting meaningless words on Slashdot.
That or Democrats that can't come up with anything better to say in their attempt to get elected and use it to score points with the cynical bunch just mentioned.
I don't know exactly who makes up the patent office, but I agree that it appears they don't know what is obvious or not. Based on some of the patents that have been issued, I get the impression that a patent application goes to the next available patent clerk--not to the next available patent clerk that knows something about the subject. Therein lies the whole problem.
Here's an even better question: Can anyone explain which dumbass developed avionics for commercial airliners that can be interfered with by RF noise?
I don't know when this stuff was developed. But even if such portable RF devices weren't around when they were developed they should still have taken into account random RF noise. Airplane crashes and the explanation is, "Oh, just random RF noise caused that. You see, the collision avoidance system only works in a pristine, stable RF environment."
Duh.
I agree. I've always believed that the whole "turn off CD players and laptops during takeoff" was either 1) uninformed paranoia or 2) tricks to get you to use on-board entertainment and phone services.
If the safety of the plane is truly at risk if someone forgets (or intentionally!) leaves their cell phone on, we've got bigger safety problems with our planes than wiring short-circuiting in gas tanks or people walking on to planes with guns.
Fix the planes. If the collision avoidance system is so delicate, demand quality product from the collision avoidance vendor. If the damn system can't tell the difference between an incoming 747 and a cell phone aft of the cockpit, why are they paying good money for that system?
They didn't. They punished web sites that were using team/baseball league logos--and those same sites were apparently trying to make some money. My understanding is that they don't even have a problem with fans using their logos on websites as long as it's non-profit.
I still think it's heavy-handed. Especially for something called "America's passtime."
Actually, it wouldn't be unreasonable for them to want to take the pictures when you get insurance. But I've never had them ask to do that.